


Broken Lullaby

by embroiderama



Category: White Collar RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 17:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2158491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many forms of comfort, and sometimes none of them are enough but you hold on to what you have left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> I was hanging out in chat with [](http://angelita26.livejournal.com/profile)[**angelita26**](http://angelita26.livejournal.com/) and [](http://pooh-collector.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://pooh-collector.livejournal.com/)**pooh_collector** , and we got to talking about the image of Matt sitting and singing a lullaby with a feverish little child slung over his chest. I wanted to write it, but kid-wise it had to be AU, so I started thinking and my first thought was terribly sad but my two partners in crime there encouraged me to go ahead with it. This is just a peek at an AU in which their fictional families don't resemble their real families in any way whatsoever.
> 
> Warnings: Off-screen death of OCs. Gratuitous angst.

Matt sat on the sofa with Mason’s fever-warm body curled up in his lap and thought, _we should have a rocking chair, we need a rocking chair_. He closed his stinging eyes and for just a moment he could believe that everything would be okay if only he and Tim had a rocking chair, but after a few seconds the lie dissolved. Reality was that his nephew, his three year old godson, had the flu. He’d spiked a fever the night before, and Matt’s sister and brother-in-law had panicked. Lisa and Ryan put Mason in the car and took off for the hospital. The drunk driver who hit them killed both of the adults sitting in the front seat, but the little boy sleeping in his car seat wasn’t injured beyond a few bruises and a life that would never be the same.

The phone call had woken Matt three hours after he went to bed the night before, and he hadn’t slept since. There had been the emergency room, the doctors, the police. The morgue. Tim was at his side the whole time, quiet but supportive, but Matt was scared to lean into Tim’s strength for fear of collapsing entirely. In the end, all they could do was take Mason home when he was released by the ER staff. Matt couldn’t fall apart, no matter how much his heart was breaking.

He and Tim had discussed taking Mason back to Lisa and Ryan’s house, but Tim worried that Mason would be more confused at being home without his parents and Matt didn’t think he could take it right then, being in his sister’s home and knowing she would never be there again. She had stood up for him when he was fourteen and coming out to their parents, and she’d taken him in when his last relationship had fallen apart so disastrously. She’d been the only family he had left.

In the end, Matt took Mason home to their place while Tim went to Lisa’s house to get some clothes and things that Mason would need for the next few days. Mason’s fever had gone down early in the evening, and Matt thought that Mason had finally given into his exhaustion and fallen asleep, but then he squirmed and opened his eyes. “Where’s Mama?” he asked, and Matt pressed his lips together to keep his emotions under control. “Daddy?”

“They’re not here right now, buddy. You need to get some sleep though, huh?”

“Matt-Matt,” Mason said, the nickname he’d chosen, the one that made Lisa laugh. That had made her laugh.

“That’s me.”

“Sing me asleep?”

Matt ran his hand through Mason’s sweaty hair and swallowed hard. It had been a fun ritual, when he and Tim got to babysit, that Matt would sing Mason to sleep. Lisa couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Lisa— “I don’t really feel like singing right now, buddy.”

“Pleeeease?”

Matt shook his head and bit down hard on his lip. He didn’t know how to say no, but his throat felt so tight he didn’t know if he’d be able to force out a note “Come here,” he said, sighing, and pulled Mason up to rest with his body draped over Matt’s chest and his head on Matt’s shoulder. He rubbed lightly at Mason’s back while he tried to think of what to sing.

Matt heard the front door lock disengage then watched as Tim slipped through the door, moving almost silently. He left the suitcase just inside the door then gave Matt a small smile as he carried the groceries through to the kitchen. “Siiing,” Mason said, though he sounded half asleep already.

Matt took a breath to steady himself, swallowed to clear his throat then dredged up an old song that wasn’t one of the Disney tunes he usually sang for Mason. He didn’t have the heart for that, not tonight.

“Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry.” Matt paused as his voice started to break. “Go to sleep, little baby.” Mason’s breath was a warm, steady puff against Matt’s neck, but he didn’t want to stop in case the little boy wasn’t quite asleep. “When you wake, you shall have a cake and all the pretty little horses.” The tears burning in Matt’s eyes started to roll down his cheeks, but he couldn’t let go of Mason to brush them away. He couldn’t remember the second verse, so he sang the first one over again, and when he looked up he saw Tim watching him from the kitchen doorway.

He looked hesitant, like he didn’t want to intrude, so Matt tilted his head slightly against Mason’s and hoped his eyes would communicate the right thing. Matt continued, “Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry. Go to sleep, little baby,” and watched as Tim walked over slowly and sat down next to them on the couch, careful not to shift the cushions enough to wake the sleeping boy. Matt’s throat ached worse than before, and when he started to sing the next line his voice wobbled. “When you wake, you shall have a cake and a—“

Matt felt like he was choking, but then Tim wrapped both arms around him—around them—and Matt couldn’t sing anymore. There was no sound other than Mason’s snuffly snores, Tim’s deep, steady breathing and Matt’s own near-silent sobs. “Please don’t leave” he whispered to Tim on a gasp of air. If Tim stood up from the sofa, Matt thought he would crumble. And if Tim left him, if raising a child wasn’t what he signed up for, Matt knew he would have to survive for Mason’s sake but the thought of being alone with this grief and responsibility was crushing.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Tim’s voice was low and gentle as he spoke the words into Matt’s ear, but there was nothing uncertain about them. “Not ever. Not ever.”


End file.
